Try to imagine life without memory. How would you learn from your mistakes? You would not remember how to do those things that make up your daily routine, such as making breakfast, going to work, doing your job etc., and you would not be able to build relationships with the people you cherish and love, because there would be no shared memories and no fond nostalgia. Your chance of survival would be seriously compromised, because you would repeat dangerous things that put you at risk, such as walking in front of a traveling car, eating something poisonous, or putting your hand in fire. You would not be able to learn a profession or trade, because you would not remember anything. How can a doctor treat patients without remembering human anatomy or the diagnoses of diseases?
There is no doubt that the fifth vritti, smriti or memory, has profound practicality and survival value. Even single-celled organisms without brains and central nervous systems, like amoebae, are able to learn, exhibiting memory. Memory is a primitive function of consciousness, fundamental to our existence on Earth; we remember in order to survive.
At the same time, our memories can hold us back and weigh us down significantly. There are two main reasons. The first reason is the emotional association we give to memory – the “charge” – as we accumulate experiences, because of the likes and dislikes we attach to them. For example, “I hate thunderstorms,” “I love picnics,” “All teenagers are rude.” We have one or two experiences and then we generalize. The second is the fact that we create habits or behavioral tendencies because of those associations. While habits can be useful, they limit us. We lose neuroplasticity. We restrict ourselves by the cognates of the past. As a result, effectively, the past interferes in the present.
For example, if a person had a traumatic experience while swimming as a child, he may fear being in water for the rest of his life, and it may carry over into future lives also. If a young girl associates the smell of lavender with her mother, she may feel safe and happy with every woman who wears lavender perfume she meets as an adult. If a boy’s tantrums successfully got him the attention he wanted when he was small, he may continue to create tantrums as an adult in his relationships in order to demand attention. Our patterns very easily become fixed, and most of them are unconscious.
In his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali describes the fifth vritti as follows:
1.11: Anubhuta vishaya asampramoshah smritih
Memory is when the vrittis of perceived subjects do not slip away.
Instead they form impressions,
which can come back again to consciousness.
Memory is the recalling of past experiences through
these impressions that have settled in the field of consciousness.
Creating memory is the laying down of experience in the form of vibrational patterns in the field of consciousness. These are known as impressions or samskaras in Yoga. Remembering is the recalling of those stored memories. Both these processes are happening continuously. Constantly we are referring our present feelings and experiences to cognates from the past. So the past is being projected into the present and coloring our experience.
Patanjali says that the vrittis can either be colored (klishta) or uncolored (aklishta), that is, either impure or pure. And this is so true of memories. For example, in The River of Consciousness, Oliver Sacks1 shares so many documented examples of how we mis-remember situations and events, based on a number of factors, including the merging together of various memories over time, our emotional colorings, and what other people tell us of past events. In fact, there are all sorts of colorings. We build up a library of impressions that interact with each other, creating real and imaginary memories. Our memories become colored. Gradually, over time, the mind becomes like a painter’s canvas that has layer upon layer of painting on it, all mixed up together. There is no longer purity or clarity in perception.
Compare this with small children, whose minds are still fresh and clear. They are so full of life, so full of wonder, and so open in their approach to the world. They are not bogged down by memory. There is nothing tainting their worldview. It is for this reason that Yoga values so much the regulation of the mind through meditative practices and the removal of impressions. The whole effort involved in Yoga is to remove these obstacles, the things that bind us and hold us down, so that we become like small children – and that is especially true of removing the emotional charge of memories.
Patanjali also says:
4.6: Tatra dhyana jam anasayam
Of all the types of consciousness that we see,
only the original state that is uncovered in meditation
is free from latent impressions and desires.
It exists without any support,
without motivation – it is desireless.
This original state is the goal of Yoga. We aspire to uncover what existed before creation. It is the state of Samadhi; a state without thought. It existed before we created our own inner ecology over time. When we are in Samadhi, we are totally in the present. There is no thinking, only witnessing. Meditation is, in effect, the letting go of thinking. This is such an important concept, which is at the very crux of Yoga, and it highlights the central role of meditation in Yoga. In meditation we learn how to let go of thinking and simply witness. More about this later.
This is why Yoga can never be associated with any belief system or religion – because all religions require language, dogma and belief, whereas the original state is beyond all these.
Patanjali continues:
4.9: Jati desha kala vyavahitanam api
anantaryam smriti samskarayoh eka rupatvat
Since memory and deep impressions (samskaras)
have the same form, the relationship of cause
and effect continues to be played out,
even though there might be
a gap in location, time and state of life.
In other words, there is continuity. We may die and be reborn into another body, at another time, in another place, but that is only the death of the physical body – the subtle bodies and the soul carry on. And the subtle bodies carry the impressions with them around the soul from one life to the next. That is why in research studies done by psychiatrists like Dr Brian Weiss, people remember things from their past lives. And it is also why impressions from past lives can affect us subconsciously in the present, without us even being aware.
It is only once we transcend the mind, in Samadhi, that there is no longer any need for rebirth. We are then liberated – because there are no more desires to be fulfilled. We have reached the original state beyond creation.
4.10: Tasam anaditvam cha ashisah nityatvat
There is no beginning to this process of deep impressions,
as the desire to live and be happy is eternal.
Each new experience is built upon the tendencies laid down by past experiences. There is no beginning to desire and the wish for happiness. Try to witness your desires. If you watch them, and are alert to the way they affect your behavior, you will soon understand why it is so useful to remove them from your field of consciousness. The good news is that there is an end to desires, through the practices of Yoga. As energy is gradually released from being bound up in desires – by removing the vibrational knots or complexities in the field of consciousness – it becomes available to help you soar higher and higher. And as more and more of the knots of desire are removed, your energy will be able to soar high enough for you to reach escape velocity.
4.11: Hetu phala ashraya alambana
samgrihitatvat esam abhave tad abhavah
As the knots of energy of impressions
are held together by cause and effect,
the effects disappear with the causes.
What does Patanjali mean here? Think of the effects he speaks about as your emotional reactions. You may be fearful, angry, jealous, anxious, self-pitying or resentful, or you may be kind, compassionate, loving, generous and forgiving. But these are only the effects of underlying causes that exist within your system. What are the underlying causes? They are the samskaric impressions in your field of consciousness.
It is important to understand that the effects cannot be removed by trying to change the effects. If you fell a tree but leave the roots intact, many trees will regrow from the roots. Similarly, if you try to change outer behaviors without removing the underlying samskaras, the behaviors will re-emerge as soon as the conditions are conducive. Trying to control your emotions is a good start – it is good to be aware and willing to change behavioral patterns, such as learning to manage anger. But it is still tackling the problem from the cosmetic and superficial level. That is why the medical approach to mental illness has limitations, and why we have a global epidemic of depression. Medication and behavioral changes can only attempt to manage symptoms, the effects. They cannot address the root cause. To remove the root needs something more. Hence we require something like the Heartfulness practice of Cleaning, which works deeply at the innermost level, removing the root cause itself.
For permanent change, the samskaras or energy knots have to be removed. If you try to manage this only by controlling your emotions, they will continue to accumulate in your subconscious, and you will end up with a pressure cooker inside you ready to explode. Heartfulness Cleaning does the opposite; it releases the effects by removing the root cause.
4.12: Atita anagatam svarupatah
asti adhva bhedat dharmanam
Past and future exist in the present,
but they are not experienced in the present
because they have different characteristics;
they are on different planes.
Generally we are unconsciously influenced by the past and anticipating the future; whereas if our consciousness is pure we see eternity as it is – eternally in the present moment. Most of us are limited to the thin film of consciousness that we use, and as a result we do not understand the relationship between past, present and future – between subconscious, conscious and superconscious.
In Heartfulness Meditation, we learn how to expand consciousness until it becomes infinite. With the aid of Yogic Transmission, what was earlier subconscious, i.e. below consciousness, is illuminated into consciousness. What was superconscious, i.e. above consciousness, is also illuminated into consciousness. No longer do we need to compartmentalize these three parts of the consciousness spectrum and be so unaware of what is happening within us.
Of course the autonomic functions of the mind that allow us to breathe, to digest food, that allow the heart to pump blood, and allow us to process all the stimuli that we take in, still go on unconsciously, and we want them to. But the emotions related to memory can be removed, and behavioral change can also then take effect in a real way.
Once the emotional charge of our likes and dislikes is removed, through the meditative practices and lifestyle changes of Heartfulness, we learn how to witness instead of observe, without the mind interfering in the process. Observation is influenced by the pre-judgment of conditioning, of previous information, because it involves impressions. There is constant interference. This is what is referred to in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. As observers, we are always involved, as our likes and dislikes draw our observation in the first place, and based on them we judge and interfere. As mentioned earlier, observation is usually goal-oriented, as in the scientific method where we start with an hypothesis – our own preconception based on observation. The observing mind seeks an outcome. The observing mind is not passive or disinterested. Compare this with witnessing, which is neutral.
The Buddha expressed this idea of the witness in a slightly different way. The term he used for meditation was “right memory.” You can also call it uncolored memory, or unbiased memory. Right memory is truthful. It is freeing. It is authentic. All this comes from meditation where we learn to simply witness and allow everything to surface and leave.
The result? Clarity of mind and the associated ability to discern and make wise decisions. To arrive at that state we need to journey through the Heart Region, and master the emotions associated with the five elements of the chakras in the Heart. In this process, all the samskaric complexities and impurities associated with those emotions unravel and dissipate. We arrive at a state of clarity and authenticity.
Accumulating memories is like accumulating material possessions. Memories are our mental possessions, and those we hold dear are like our most precious material possessions. Generally they are much harder to let go of than material possessions. We allow them to define our identity. Our ego becomes entangled in them.
Are we willing to let go of our memories? And what are we losing anyway? It is not the information of the memory but the emotional interference, the knot in the energy field, so that the charge is diffused. When the past is not continuously there, the uncolored present can be there.
How is this possible? One of the most potent practices ever conceived in yogic psychology is Heartfulness Cleaning. Its purpose is to remove impressions – to purify the field of consciousness of all the complexities and impurities that accumulate. Impressions are removed daily, using the power of thought, just like dirt is removed from the physical body when taking a bath.
Cleaning also helps with the first limb of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga, Yama, to remove unwanted tendencies. The possibility of removal of tendencies does exist, otherwise why would Patanjali have included Yama as the first step of Ashtanga Yoga? I am making this remark because some sannyasis feel that it is impossible to remove samskaras.
Heartfulness Cleaning is simple and effective, and has revolutionized Yoga since it was first introduced in the 1940s by Ram Chandra of Shahjahanpur. It is Cleaning that removes the emotional charge. It is Cleaning that disentangles the past influences. It is Cleaning that allows us to redesign our destiny.
One of the more interesting findings in neuroscience is about the way memories are formed. Scientists talk about implicit memory, which forms unconsciously, and explicit memory, which forms consciously. When we react emotionally in a situation, e.g. out of fear, it is usually very rapid, bypassing the cognitive cortical centers of the brain. Our system utilizes other nerve pathways, such as from the heart neurons via the pneumogastric (tenth) cranial nerve to subcortical structures like the cerebellar tonsil. The heart’s electromagnetic pulses also rapidly influence the whole body and beyond. So when there is a feeling or emotional response involved in the laying down of memory, or in the retrieval of a memory, then we use implicit memory, which cannot be managed or removed through cognitive mental processes, because the memory pathways do not go through the cognitive centers. It is a different type of memory.
It can, however, be dealt with by the heart, especially through the practices of meditation on the heart and cleaning of the heart, because the heart can respond instantaneously. Only through heart-based practices can we learn to master emotions and arrive at uncolored ‘real’ memory.
The more we are able to purify our consciousness,
by removing the samskaras at the root of mental complexities,
the more likely we are to have clear,
uncolored memory and hence a healthy mind,
an overall sense of well-being and a purposeful destiny.
In The River of Consciousness, Oliver Sacks explains that hallucination and imagination involve the same memory pathways in the brain as ‘real’ perception does. Neuroscientists have so far concluded that there is no mechanism in the mind for ensuring reality and truthfulness. So in that sense the mind is amoral, because the ‘guiding factor’ or conscience to determine what is right (pramana) and what is wrong (viparyaya), what is real and what is imagination (vikalpa), is not found in neuroscience. Memory is constructed in a highly subjective way. What we feel to be true is as much dependent on imagination as on the senses, because events and situations are experienced. Subjectivity is built into the very nature of memory. And memory arises not only from experience but also from the interchange of many minds.
So where does reality come from? Where does truth come from? Again, we come to the role of the heart. Through Heartfulness practices we experience the heart as the subtle organ that tells us what is real and not real, what is right and wrong etc. The inference of this is very profound: by listening to the heart we discover the voice of conscience becoming clearer, so that we can discern and discriminate with ease. We develop Viveka. But there is one important caveat – this only works when the heart is pure, when the field of consciousness is pure.
Ultimately, the more we are able to purify our consciousness, by removing the samskaras at the root of mental complexities, the more likely we are to have clear, uncolored memory and hence a healthy mind, an overall sense of well-being and a purposeful destiny.
1 Sacks, O., 2017. The River of Consciousness, Penguin Random House, USA.
Article by KAMLESH PATEL
